Letters to the Editor Saturday

The gun control commercial that has been running this week is turning my stomach.

You have a “hunter” seated on the tailgate of his truck holding a shotgun.

The first thing that is wrong is the “hunter” has his finger on the trigger as he is speaking.

The second thing is that he has the gun resting on his legs with the barrel pointed in the direction of his family.

No true hunter or gun enthusiast with the bare minimum of training would ever do any of this.

This production, paid for by the nanny New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is presenting a biased, stereotypical and completely false picture of your average gun owner. It’s insidious and it will snare millions into its twisted logic.

Do your homework.

Bloomberg is against private gun ownership.

This commercial is using a “law-abiding” gun owner to convince people that he is trying to protect them from “illegal” guns i.e. assault rifles in the hands of criminals. This is not the case at all.

Bloomberg is using the image of a “hunter” to fool people into believing he is fighting to protect their Second Amendment rights.

What he is doing is pulling that right from under them.

MARC WILKS

Savannah

Bethesda Academy needs many more heroes

On behalf of the Board of Governors of Bethesda Academy, I would like to thank Tom Barton for the enlightening column last Sunday.

Bethesda Academy is truly in the midst of a new resurrection that was deftly described by Barton’s recent piece.

With the addition of the William H. Ford Museum and Visitor Center, we are happy to share our living history that today finds 85 percent of our graduates attending college, while other young Bethesda leaders are pursuing work careers or serve in the military.

Bethesda’s history is part and parcel of Savannah’s story, and our mission is inspired by the support of our community. Barton accurately stated the tremendous contribution of Barney Diamond, a Bethesda alum, whose legacy gift provides about 30 percent of needed financial aid for our deserving students.

The bottom line is that Bethesda Academy needs many more heroes like Barney Diamond. Our Board of Governors and Bethesda President David Tribble welcome our fellow citizens to visit our campus and become more acquainted with the amazing life stories of the past, present and future.

DAVE SMITH

Chairman Board of Governors

Bethesda Academy

Savannah

How to fix Ogeechee’s pollution problems

What is good enough for the Ogeechee River is good enough for King America Finishing.

I would propose a simple addendum to the King America release permit; that their effluent be at least 100 yards upstream from their intake.

JAMES R GOODGAME

Savannah

Savannah the first to oppose Citizens United ruling

Recently, Savannah made history when it became the first city in Georgia to have its City Council pass a resolution against the Citizen United ruling.

Savannah is the first city in Georgia to recognize that corporations are not people and that the First Amendment right to free speech does not equate to unbounded corporate spending on elections.

The Citizens United ruling led to the creation of Super PACs, which have the ability to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money from individuals and corporations alike, under the guise of being independent from the campaigns themselves.

Citizens United disproportionately concentrates political power in the hands of the super-rich and corporations, allowing them to have more influence in our government than those who do not have the same resources.

The resolution in Savannah gives people hope that we can reclaim our democracy.

Let’s make sure other cities in Georgia follow suit.

ADRIAN REDDING

Decatur

Let’s pick our president by popular vote

In my opinion, the presidential selection system based on the Electoral College, instead of the overall popular vote, is a failed system.

When the system was thought up many years ago, it probably was a good idea to ensure that smaller states received a “fair share” in the selection process. The advancements made over the years in communications have rendered this system obsolete and unnecessary.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the system was changed to a straight forward popular vote for 2016?

If I am not mistaken, we are the only country in the world to utilize such a stupid system to elect a person to the highest office in the land.

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Mayor Bloomberg needs to give the money is spending to take our guns away to the poor, who he cares so much about. Tell Isakson and Chambliss to vote against any change in the gun regulations. and then tell Bloomberg to put his ads where the sun don't shine.

New York Democratic Rep. Jose Serrano reintroduced a bill in Congress on Friday to repeal the 22nd Amendment, which places term limits on the U.S. presidency.

The bill, which has been referred to committee, would allow Barack President Obama to become the first president since Franklin Roosevelt to seek a third term in office.

H.J. Res. 15 proposes “an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.”

Janet Napolitano has ignored a letter written by New Jersey Congressman Leonard Lance calling for her to attend a congressional briefing and provide an explanation as to why the DHS has committed to purchasing more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over the last year.

D33 has it right--the bill to repeal the 22nd Amendment is not a creature of the Obama Administration or its supporters. It had been proposed long before Obama was even in the U.S. Senate and the same guy was proposing it when George W. Bush was President. It also hasn't a prayer of passage. So Dom, you can take off the tinfoil hat now. See what happens when you spend your time reading right-wing blogs Dom? You end up sounding foolish.

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 4, 2013

Mr. SERRANO introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

Marc get real, just one question for you. If real hunters are so careful, why are there on average around 1,000 hunting accidents per year involving a gun and about 10% of them end in death? Don't know about you , but I would not go bird hunting with Dick Chaney?

Ronald, I agree with you about the Electoral College. While we are fixing some of the great (at the time) of our forefathers voting ideas in 1778 when the whole population of America was less than 4,000,000. Does it make sense that California with a bigger population then Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Idaho Nebraska, West Virginia, Nevada, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi and Iowa has only two (2) Senate votes while the other ten (10) states with less population have twenty (20) Senate votes?

If the was GOP smart , instead of Texas talking of seceding from America, they should divide their state and also Alaska into four (4) states each and then they could really control the Senate instead of just blocking it from working.

... California with a bigger population than Wyoming et al has only (2) Senate votes while the other (10) states with less population have (20) Senate votes?"

Yes. Especially since Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginnia, Nevada, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi and Iowa only have (45) Members in the House of Representatives while California has (53) Members in the House of Representatives.

It's called checks and balances and it is what keeps the larger states from enacting laws to the detriment of smaller states.

Again, this congressman has proposed the same bill for that past 16 years...Obama has been in office for a little over 4 years...what part of that math do you fail to understand? No one was "blaming Bush" for God's sake, I just said that the congressman had introduced the same damn bill when W. was President too, so the bill is not about Obama per se. Your reading comprehension is a bit off today?

The bill has no chance at passage. I am not in favor of it either. I think term limits are a good thing and have said so many times. I won't vote for any Senator who has served more than two terms, or any Congressman who has been elected five times.

Jack Kingston just got elected to his 11th term and when he finishes that one he will have been in Congress for 22 years. When he was first running for office, Jack used to like to talk about "professional politicians" and how they were not good for government. But...seems thing have changed, eh? So Dom, what say YOU about that? :-)

The Framers set up the two chambers to be very different from each other. The House was to be more democratic, more responsive to current political trends, and to be the body where bills began. The Senate was designed to be a deliberative body that might serve as a check on the House, and a place where all the states were equal.

The Electoral College: I don't think that I am in favor of disbanding it. The Electoral College was set up for the same reasons that the Senate was designed as it was. The fear was that the smallest states would be ignored in favor of the largest states if popular vote was the method by which we elected a President. If there were no electoral college, Presidential candidates would not be bothering with New Mexico and Iowa like they do today. While few states get a Presidential candidate visiting them today because the partisan divide makes only a few states "swing states", if there were no Electoral College it would be worse. A candidate could win the presidency by winning only about 10 or so of the largest states. While in my gut I like the idea of the popular vote being the deciding factor, I wonder if it would be a good thing.

The Senate matching protects the small population states from being overcome. The Representative matching gives weight to the population density.
What a shame that they no longer teach Civics in the Public School System.

"The Senate matching protects the small population states from being overcome. The Representative matching gives weight to the population density."

No [filtered word] Sherlock! However, if people decide to live in sparsely populated states their vote should not be weighed more than those in heavily populated states.

"The biggest winners in the system, those whose votes count the most, live in just four states: Colorado, New Hampshire, Iowa and Nevada. They have low voter-to-elector ratios and are in battleground states. Only 4 percent of the nation's eligible voters – 1 in 25 – live in those states.

It's all dictated by the U.S. Constitution, which set up the Electoral College. The number of electors each state gets depends on the size of its congressional delegation. Even the least populated states – like Wyoming – get a minimum of three, meaning more crowded states get less proportionally.

If the nation's Electoral College votes were apportioned in a strict one-person, one-vote manner, each state would get one elector for every 395,000 eligible voters. Some 156 million voters live in the 20 states that have a larger ratio than that average: That's 73 percent – nearly 3 out of 4.

And for most people, it's even more unrepresentative. About 58 percent of the nation's eligible voting population lives in states with voter-to-elector ratios three times as large as Wyoming's. In other words, Dave Smith's voting power is about equal to three of his wife's aunts and uncles in Ohio, and most people in the nation are on the aunt-and-uncle side of that unbalanced equation.

"It's a terrible system; it's the most undemocratic way of electing a chief executive in the world, " said Paul Finkelman, a law professor at Albany Law School who teaches this year at Duke University. "There's no other electoral system in the world where the person with the most votes doesn't win."

What a shame you know nothing about statistical analysis and that you apparently slept through math class when you were in school.

The Founding Fathers set up the electoral process so as not to allow the populous states to run the entire show. Bravo to them. America is a representative republic, not a pure democracy. I would suppose that the large majority of Americans would prefer not to let California, New York, and Illinois be responsible for every Presidential election.

I understand that that would be your fondest wish and if you are unhappy, maybe you and Dr. Finkelman can change the Constitution. I suspect such a profound alteration would take more than just another amendment. Can the two of you call a Constitutional Convention? Congress has been unable to pass a budget in 4+ years. Your chances for success approach zero.

So in the meantime, your screech and whine disappears into the background noise fairly quickly.

The Electoral College is a nod to the smaller states. Yes Rexus, you're correct in stating that a Wyoming voter's vote might be more valuable than that of a voter living in Texas or New York. However, there is a method to the Framer's madness. They did not want the large states to have the ability to push the small states around. While I have some misgivings about the Electoral College because of the possibility that the winner of the popular vote might not be elected, I also would rather that the small states have a real voice in government. So, the Electoral College is a compromise. It is still a function of the popular vote no matter how you slice it because you have to win the state to get the Electors, so it is not undemocratic per se.

"It is still a function of the popular vote no matter how you slice it because you have to win the state to get the Electors, so it is not undemocratic per se. "

But you don't have to win the popular vote to be declared the winner witness the disaster in 2000 and it does seen odd that a person could win the presidency and not be the candidate that the people as a whole want.

Also the electoral college discourages candidates from going to small populated states. They know how many electoral votes each state has so they know that there are states they do not have to go to. In very close elections however there is no way they know how many votes will determine the outcome so even a few thousand in this small state and that small state might make the difference.

In addition the electoral college discourages third party candidates so we are probably stuck with the same two dysfunctional parties unless something changes.

As far as small states losing their voice in government how does going to a straight popular vote for president diminish any states' clout? Each state still has two senators and proportional representation in the House.

The electoral college is no longer needed. It has been in disfavor by the general public for decades.

If you mistook my pedantry over the laws of physics as "a lesson in gun safety" - you took the wrong lesson.

I was merely pointing out that the gentleman in question did not have (in Mr Wilks' words) " the barrel pointed in the direction of his family" and that in the photo shown, the children were in no direct danger.

I was making no comment on the safety or otherwise of his posture and the position of the shotgun. D'ya know why ? Because I am fully aware of my lack of practical experience in gun safety. See? I have always found it wise not to comment in those circumstances.

My use of 'AR' was nothing to do with assault rifle - the guy on Fox News referred to 'Arkansans' - and that's the meaning of AR that I used. Any hunter that uses an AR is missing both brain cells and cojones

Even a novice like me knows the difference between an assault rifle and a 12 gauge shotgun - especially in appearance.

P.S. Love your picture - I have met girls like that before - thankfully.

One change I have often thought was needed is that instead of winner take all of a states electoral votes, they should be allocated according to votes received in said state. For instance, if a certain state had 1 million votes cast, and the state is allocated with 12 electoral votes. candidate A receives 50.9% of the votes cast while candidate B receives 49.1%. It would then make sense to me for the electoral votes to be split this way. That way if one candidate received 1,000,000 votes and the other received 999,999 you would not disenfranchise the 999,999 that voted for the other guy. Just a thought.